Shasta County sees first measles case in 17 years

Shasta County has had its first reported case of measles in 17 years, public health officials said, pushing the state’s case count for the year at more than 50 compared to only four the year before. “This is what happens when you get below that level (of immunity), and hopefully we will have no secondary cases and we’ll be fine,” said Kate Pasley, a supervising public health nurse for Shasta County. “This is a good wakeup call for the community to look at their immunization records.”

Corey Egel, a public information officer for the California Department of Public Health, said there had been 51 reported cases of measles in California as of last week, not including the Shasta County case. California only had four cases on record at the end of April 2013, Egel said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the entire country generally only sees about 60 cases annually, though 2013 was the second-biggest year on record for the disease since it was eliminated in 2000, with 189 cases reported last year.

In addition to this year’s outbreak in California, a similar pattern is taking its toll across the country in New York, while Canada is having its own measles problem

The Shasta County patient — only revealed by Public Health to be a county adult who was not vaccinated — ate at the Olive Garden restaurant on Dana Drive on April 1 and was not an employee there.

“We’ve been working really hard to make sure that all the people who might have been in contact with this person have been contacted,” Pasley said.

Pasley said her agency is now asking anyone who was there between 5 and 6:30 p.m. — roughly the same time as the infected patron — to watch for symptoms of the highly contagious disease.

“It’s a pretty specific timeline,” Pasley said.

Pasley said those most at-risk are people who haven’t gotten two measles-mumps-rubella vaccines in their lifetime.

Most people born after 1990 would have gotten two shots, Pasley said, but it wasn’t standard procedure before then to get a booster shot as it is now.

Symptoms include fever, red and swollen eyes and a cough, then a rash starting on the head and spreading to the lower body about four days after those symptoms first pop up.

Symptoms usually begin about 10 days after exposure to the virus, but can start anywhere from 7 to 18 days after, Pasley said.

Because the diseases is so contagious, Pasley said anyone who suspects they might be infected should call their doctor’s office and explain their symptoms before going in and risking infecting others there. There are measures that can be taken to prevent spread of disease with a measles patient, she said.

“It’s not that you can’t get care, but it’s just that you need to do it responsibly,” Pasley said.

Measles is often acquired when unvaccinated people travel abroad to countries where it’s still common, though it isn’t in the United States. The CDC estimates 28 percent of all cases in the US originate abroad.